Kate Middleton visited the Brink dry bar in Liverpool this week, where she tasted the Duchess, a smoothie created in her honour (banana, honey, almonds, milk and a dash of cream). But what's the difference between a dry bar and a cafe? The Duchess of Cambridge is patron of Action on Addiction, and its Liverpool head of service Jacquie Johnston-Lynch, founder of the Brink, says the key is that "most cafes don't have a 'night-out' feel and they close by six. We run events for kids during the day, but in the evenings, we're very much about adults: we have band nights, open mics. It's just like a normal bar, but with pots of tea on tables rather than pints of beer."

There are other dry bars around the country – at Hanam's, a Kurdish restaurant in Edinburgh – and alcohol-free pubs for under-18s have been trialled in Edinburgh, Crewe and Merseyside. Where the Brink appears unique is in aiming to offer recovering addicts a night out without coming under pressure to drink.

According to Johnston-Lynch, however, most of the punters sipping its alcohol-free cocktails and cardamom tonic water are not former addicts. "We get all sorts of people in – from yummy mummies to young women on nights out," she says. "The most important thing for us is that people who don't want to drink alcohol shouldn't be made to feel 'less' than people who do."